Dreams

   

 From what I can remember off my dreams gave me something to think about and I realized something; dreams show what your subconscious desires, what you wish an event in real life would have really gone and it’s controlled mostly by emotions. My dreams mostly tend to give me a perspective I did not have about an something, it may be real or not, like for example if I would had gone to sleep hungry I would definitely stuff my face food in one of my favorite restaurants but that’s just a usual dream there are some dreams with deeper meaning that reveal something either about my life personally or something which will help me to achieve a goal that I REALLY want even though it’s not shown in the most obvious way. For example if I would like to quit my job , like a dream I had, the aftermath was me buying whatever I wanted but I did not know where the money came from but I knew I had made it myself but the way I got it seems mostly fuzzy and when I woke up I knew I had made the money doing something but I just couldn't tie the loose ends. That tends to happen to me because I sort of wake-up during the night and start dreaming another thing. During the dream exercise for which I did not set an alarm clock because I was fearful it would go off in mid-dream I found out that when I woke up I had a brainstorm of sorts inside my head with all these ideas I had going in my head while I was asleep I only got a few minutes before I forgot at least half of it but I still wrote it down, the main concepts to be exact. The exercise got me thinking of the dream all day long and as I kept reading the same concepts over and over certain actions during my day made me remember more about the dream I had for example I had dreamt with someone I did not remember was in the dream, because rarely I remember the faces, but when I met this person randomly I remembered a bit of my dream where he or she was involved. It’s sort of a déjà vu but even though it was the same scenario the conversation was different. The exercise reminded me , since I had tried it before, that if I pay more attention to my dreams I can find more about myself by having scenarios which I wouldn't have in real life.

Dead Poets Society Reaction

The movie Dead Poets Society is based on a high school for the rich called Welton Academy or more commonly known to students as Hellton Academy for its notoriety of being a difficult school. The 2 characters who rapidly became roommates are Todd Anderson and Neil Perry. Neil and Todd even though were teenagers at a high school they are constantly being pressured by their parents to be on schedule with their plans to make him a lawyer just like his older brother in the case of Todd. Neil has a similar situation but being an only child whose father is new rich had even more pressure because he did not want to see his family disappointed with him over not being a successful professional like the doctor his father wants him to be. This background is not especially a good place to be when you are a teenager who does not have any worries, and is still has no idea what he is going to do in his life and at the same time has to withstand, without complaining, everything his father tells him to do. Neither Todd nor Neil have been courageous enough to tell their parents that they do not want to take any parts in the life their parents already drew for both. When they arrive to the English class they meet their new professor Mr. Keating who is an ex-student at Welton Academy that want to teach his students to be free-thinkers given the fact that he knows the type of pressure the Academy can put in. First thing he teaches the students is the Latin phrase “Carpe Diem” which means: seize the day. The second day of class Mr. Keating tells the students to rip off the introduction of their text books saying that students need to think for themselves and in literature there is no such thing as grading a poem that it is measured by how the reader reacts to it. This along with finding the yearbook in which Mr. Keating appears encourages Neil and other students from his class like Todd to reopen the Dead Poets Society, a group of students with an interest in poems and that held meetings in a cave near the Welton Academy’s campus, founded by Mr. Keating. Neil uses this opportunity to make something else from his life than just being a student with aims to be a doctor, he just wanted to fit it in. After reorganizing the Dead Poets Society Neil felt strongly to try out for a play in the academy, to his disbelief he got the leading role, he then is asked for his father’s and the headmasters approval to which he certainly knew that his was not going to be allowed to perform in the play. Neil decided to play the odds and forged hid father signature in the permission slip to be allowed in the play, this shows he was deifying his father following only his goals because he always says that he is not allowed to do anything beside med school. Todd is very shy, whose shyness maybe from always doing what he is told by his parents no matter what, is asked by Mr. Keating at a class to recite an improvised poem in front of the class this exercise gave Todd self-confidence. It can be seen as little by little how Neil and Todd embrace “Carpe Diem” and start living by rules set by them. A few days later at Neil appeared at the play after being told by his father not to appear since his father found out he had sign the permission slip, after the play Neil’s fathers stubbornness and bossiness led him to punish Neil and told him that if he could not set things straight at the Academy that he (Neil) would be forced to a military school to make sure see his son turn into the professional he should be. That night Neil could not handle the pressure and the idea that the life he was going to live was the desire of his father so he grabbed a gun and shot himself. Neil’s father blamed the death on Neil on the hands of Mr. Keating because he wanted to make them free-thinkers to which the headmaster agreed and threw Keating out of the Academy when the students from the Dead Poets Society where force to sign a document stipulating this event. Reflecting on the movie it shows a real situation that happens today in some families in which popularity becomes a life style and a contest that cannot be lost or their prestige would be diminished. That is why Mr. Keating was not well liked among the parents. Mr. Keating is a sign of life and freedom that motivates the students to strive for what they love not what they are told. In my opinion he gave them a better lesson than anyone in that academy could, he showed them what life and being happy was all about. For Neil it is clear what happened but for Todd his life became full of possibilities even though he could not do them all, inside of him he now knows that there's more to life than what he was mislead to believe.

A Small Place Identity

     During the journey that “A small place” takes the readers there are descriptions of stereotypes to which different people can identify. In the Antigua that Jamaica Kinkaid describes the foreigners they were the Syrians and the Lebanese their identity in the book is to immigrate to another place from their mainland with the money enough to make the government their ally their role in the Antiguan society was to make as much money as possible exploiting the island’s “vulnerability”. There were the white people who are Europeans and American which mostly went to the island as tourists to spend their money and experience what was like to enjoy feeling alone where ever they travel while at the same time be opportunistic because if they found something they could benefit off they would have stayed too same as the foreigners. Aside from white and foreign people in the book the British as people who thought too much of themselves and which took a position of wealth and power quickly because they wanted to implant their system with new roads, government buildings and banks this plays the role when England had power with the crown and wanted to conquer the world. Lastly there were the Antiguans which are identified with being servants and being deemed by society as a lower class race like many black people are in which case stereotypes them into being basically known like slaves from the people that intruded in their land. A small place has a lot of identity descriptions which stereotypes people from that time and the presents time also in the cases that apply like the American which can be identified the same way, not so much from England because since the lost their word conquering war the settled for their land.

A Small Place Reaction

     The book “A small place” by Jamaica Kincaid demonstrates, through perspective of the author, how the small island of Antigua is perceived through the eyes of people from outside of Antigua, through her eyes when she was a child and through the eyes of the foreigners that invaded the island. The first chapter depicts Antigua as a very poor island with torn down towns where every taxi driver has new car even though they don’t have a house and that has a library hat has not been repaired since an Earthquake took place. The Antigua shown by the author through eyes of people that go on vacation is the island that gives the impression that simulates paradise and a personal space to but in reality it’s a troubled island that is made to look great in the most traveled streets and poor in the less traveled streets, revealing the stereotype of the tourist as an inconvinience. Most, to not say all, of the mansions in Antigua are owned by foreigners and white people who came to establish themselves in a place where they could do as they pleased because they had the strong connections with the government. As can be appreciated form the book the author certainly felt disgusted by the sight of immigrants taking over her island and her culture. Even though she expresses her dislike at the end of the first chapter she says: “the natives do not like the tourists and it’s hard to explain for every native of every place is a potential tourist and every tourist is  native of somewhere”.  The Antigua that she, the author, knew no longer exists according to her “bad minded people destroyed it and time deteriorated it” the bad minded people being the British when they took Antigua as a colony. She witnessed as one street became the focus of the island where a bank, a post office and government buildings where built and among this no black person could work in any of them if they were not servants. It is notable that the author had a dislike for the government and the invaders. After all these changes she started to feel as she was losing her identity and becoming British because Antiguans did not play a role in the development of the island anymore as she says : if you wanted to know me it would be through the eyes of England. What I think is that Jamaica Kincaid felt in a way trapped inside herself and on the island. Throughout the chapters there is a notable distinction that depending on what perspective she was talking about. Many different identities could be revealed from each view but curiously her identity  was the same. As someone who lives in a small island that has been conquered twice I have seen first-hand many of the identities she depicted. After reading this book I can be see that Puerto Rico and Antigua are not all that different.